Video: Solar Sunrise, the Best FBI-Produced Hacker Flick Ever

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Video: Solar Sunrise, the Best FBI-Produced Hacker Flick Ever

With Ehud "The Analyzer" Tenenbaum back in legal hot water, what better time to revisit the 1998 Pentagon computer intrusions that made Tenenbaum famous? So I descended into the Threat Level media vault and retrieved this aging VHS copy of Solar Sunrise: Dawn of a New Threat, an 18-minute FBI training video that dramatizes the first – though not the last – recreational hacker attack to send the U.S. government into a tizzy.

The 1999 movie accurately details how U.S. officials suspected Iraq in a series of breaches of Defense Department computers around the United States, even as it shows the perpetrators for what they were: a bored Israeli teenager and some California juveniles having fun. One might assume that the "New Threat" part of the title references the danger of jumping to conclusions, but instead it's one of the silly cyber-terror warnings that were so in vogue prior to 9/11.

"Though no hostile government or group was behind these intrusions, the case clearly demonstrates the vulnerability of the nation's complex information systems to terrorist assault," the narrator warns.

Alert viewers will spot current Microsoft VP Scott Charney in his former role as the Justice Department's top cybercrime prosecutor. Also mentioned is AntiOnline, the old hacking gossip site where the Analyzer boasted of his attacks before getting caught.

Before taking the DeLorean back to 2008, I thought I'd check on AntiOnline founder John Vranesevich, a controversial figure who used to annoy people by signing every e-mail "Yours in CyberSpace." After selling his site and spending some time in Florida, he's returned to his hometown of Beaver, Pennsylvania – outside Pittsburgh – to open a 3,000-square-foot art gallery this month.

He hadn't heard about the new allegations against Tenenbaum, now 29, who's accused of hacking a Canadian financial services company and fraudulently withdrawing $1.7 million from ATMs. Solar Sunrise made Tenenbaum something of a national hero in Israel, and he was sentenced to just six months of community service. Says Vranesevich, "I'm kind of surprised he didn't turn that into something legit."